President Vladimir Putin’s main message at the U.N. General Assembly Monday was the formation of a “truly international” coalition to fight the jihadi group. But there is no evidence that the first Russian foray into the Syrian civil war has done anything besides furthering the government of Bashar Assad, whose strategy has entailed deliberately avoiding battle with Islamic State. (RELATED: Whose Planes Is Russia Planning To Shoot Down In Syria?)

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research outfit, reported that the airstrikes hit Talbisah, a town divided between local rebel groups and various Islamist factions including the local al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. ISW added that “the airstrike did not hit ISIS militants and rather resulted in the a large number of civilian casualties.”

At the same time, photographs and videos quickly emerged online of civilians bombed by the Russian airstrikes on Talbisah. One of the sources for the fresh videos was a YouTube user whose account has existed for over four years. Eliot Higgins, a British open-source analyst, pointed out the legitimacy of the account in contradiction to Russian news reports alleging that the evidence is falsified.

Opposition groups also claimed that Russian airstrikes bombed them in the town of Al-Lataminah, some 30 miles away. All the territory that reported airstrikes by Russian equipment is in rebel-held pockets surrounded by areas under regime control.

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